


The Fall of the House of Black

by minervamylove



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Andy's grief, Bella's madness, Black sisters through the years, F/M, Gen, Narcissa's sheer staggering competence, a Black sisters story/thinkpiece, and in honor of my love for Narcissa Black Malfoy, did you know that Bellatrix and Andromeda were born in the same year?, i didn't before some cursory googling, in honor of Battle of Hogwarts day, not tagging bella/rodolphus bc irrelevance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-02
Updated: 2020-05-02
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:28:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23972227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minervamylove/pseuds/minervamylove
Summary: May 2, 1998: Narcissa saves the wizarding world and her family. Bellatrix loses her life. Andromeda loses everything else. How did they get here?
Relationships: Andromeda Black Tonks/Ted Tonks, Bellatrix Black Lestrange & Narcissa Black Malfoy & Andromeda Black Tonks, Lucius Malfoy/Narcissa Black Malfoy
Comments: 2
Kudos: 29





	The Fall of the House of Black

**Author's Note:**

> This is less of a story and more of a musing. And a mess.

I. Three Sisters

 _Andy, Bella, Cissa_. The names of the three girls rolled off the tongue with the fluid ease of a rhyme, a recitation, a child chanting the alphabet. Middle child Andromeda got to come first in something for once, through the simple favoritism of the letter _A._ Quiet third-born Narcissa carried the end like the train of a bridal cloak. And star-blessed Bellatrix, eldest warrior, was the glue that stuck them together, always.

You never saw one Black sister without the others. Even as the girls grew and Bella and Andy went off to Hogwarts in the same year and left little Narcissa behind, the other Slytherins would whisper that it sometimes seemed they’d carried her there with them after all, a shadow dogging their steps. They were three sisters of a Noble and Most Ancient House. You considered them together, or not at all.

Lucius Malfoy, for all his many, many faults, understood this. Edward Tonks, for all his many, many good qualities, did not. Rodolphus Lestrange didn’t enter into it at all. And Tom Riddle ruined everything.

II. Men and Boys

 _Andy, Bella, Cissa_. All three girls grew up worrying about the disaster that was Sirius Black. He was the heir to the most important branch of their family, and Blacks didn’t blink at marrying their cousins. The logical thing would have been to betroth him to Cissa, who was only four years older than him. But the elder Black sisters knew perfectly well that loud, excitable Sirius was in no way an appropriate match for shy Narcissa. When you’re trained to think about marriage from earliest childhood, these things are quite apparent. So really, it was just as well that Lucius Malfoy started sniffing around. Were the Malfoys as Noble and Ancient as the Blacks? No, but no family was. Was Lucius himself intelligent and powerful enough to deserve Narcissa? Again, no. _Especially on the intelligence front_ , Bella whispered to Andy, relishing the giggle she knew this would elicit. But Lucius was devoted— so deeply, almost slavishly devoted— to their younger sister, and although it would have been a lie to call him a kind boy in general, he was kind to Cissa, and that was really all that mattered. Finally, he was rich and pedigreed enough to placate their parents. Black daughters were, above all, obedient to family— Andromeda and Bellatrix couldn’t have protested a match with Sirius on Narcissa’s behalf. Luckily, they wouldn’t have to. It was time for the elder sisters to worry about their own marriages.

 _I want a man, not a boy,_ said Bella to Andy whenever a Nott or an Avery or a Travers came knocking, i _s that too much to ask?_ Andy privately thought that every man must be a boy in her sister’s eyes. She was powerful; they were mewling.

But of course it _was_ too much to ask, in the end, and Bellatrix was engaged to Rodolphus Lestrange in their seventh year at Hogwarts. Black daughters were, above all, obedient to family… until Andromeda did what she did. 

III. Twin Souls

 _Andy, Bella, Cissa._ All three Black sisters lived in each others’ pockets, knit together by their isolated pureblood childhood, but no two siblings had ever been as close as Bellatrix and Andromeda. Bella was born in the first blush of 1951, and Andy followed as the year drew to a close— near-twins, the rising and setting of a sun. Bella pulled uncertain Andy forward, and Andy held reckless Bella back. They were two halves of a whole from the very beginning, and when Narcissa was born she joined her sisters as the point of a triangle that had a very strong base. Andy and Bella would move heaven and earth for their little sister, and they would do so hand in hand as they did all things.

Maybe that’s why what Andromeda did hurt Bellatrix so badly.

Andy was supposed to accept Rabastan Lestrange’s suit. She knew this. Everyone knew this. Once Bellatrix was forced to say yes to Rodolphus, the writing was on the wall: the sisters Black and the brothers Lestrange, two matched pairs. But Andy had something she’d never had before: a secret that she’d kept from Bella. The secret’s name was Edward Tonks, the secret was Muggle-born, and Andy eloped with him the moment that they left Hogwarts.

Andromeda didn’t understand how this kind-eyed Hufflepuff boy could be the epitome of everything her family wanted her to hate. Bellatrix couldn’t forgive a betrayal of this scale. Narcissa watched it all, pale eyes wide.

IV. Lords and Knights

 _Andy, Bella, Cissa._ The fracture was immediate, the ruination less so. Bellatrix was getting darker, certainly, Narcissa could see it with every moment that the two remaining Black sisters spent together, stubbornly refusing to talk or think about their erstwhile Andy, off married in a cottage somewhere. Bella was different without Andy to temper her. She was harsher, hastier, crueler. She’d always had a nasty side, Bella, but it was as if her better angels had deserted her entirely. She went to Rodolphus Lestrange’s marriage bed a changed woman. Cissa, still a schoolgirl, held Lucius’s hand surreptitiously throughout the wedding, afraid for a reason that she couldn't quite name.

The reason’s name was Tom Riddle, but Cissa couldn’t have known that yet.

When the self-styled Dark Lord founded the Knights of Walpurgis, the Blacks were the first family he recruited. Bellatrix dazzled him the most, with her stormy temper, powerful spellwork, and growing capacity for ruthlessness. She became a Knight, and then a Death Eater, and then a monster. Even when Lucius and Narcissa left school and joined the Dark Lord as was expected, Narcissa watched her sister with alarm. There was going along with their family’s pureblood ideals, and then there was Bellatrix, who lashed out at Muggles and Muggle-borns like the only thing she wanted in the world was their destruction. It almost certainly had something to do with Andromeda and Ted, but no one was foolish enough to say that out loud. Not when Bellatrix had become so proficient at the Cruciatus Curse.

V. Azkaban, 1981

 _Andy, Bella, Cissa._ No, just Bella, now, carted off to prison after the Dark Lord’s fall. Only Bella, only fracture, only madness this way lies. Only the Dementors and the bare rock and her fraying consciousness. Only the crashing of the cold, cold sea.

VI. Malfoy Manor, 1981

 _Andy, Bella, Cissa._ No, just Cissa now, at home with her family. Lucius had lied his way free, and the only thing that mattered now was Draco, their son. Draco, who would never have sisters, because the Healers had told Narcissa that she’d been lucky to survive _one_ birth. She wasn’t sure if she pitied or envied him for this.

VII. Tonks Cottage, 1981

 _Andy, Bella, Cissa._ No, just Andy now, Andy and a house full of love and laughter. Her daughter, Nymphadora, was already eight when Voldemort fell. Nym could go to Hogwarts without the shadow of war. So why was Andy unhappy? Why was she lonely, here in the heart of the beauty and light she had wrought?

VIII. The Battle of Hogwarts, 1998

 _Andy, Bella, Cissa._ When it all came to a head, only Narcissa and Bellatrix were present. It had been forty-seven years since Bellatrix and Andromeda were born, and seventeen years since the first war had ended with all three sisters scattered to the winds.

Andromeda was at home, a grandmother before fifty. Nym and Remus had been a wartime coupling, the kind of marriage that seemed hasty and unlikely to last. Andromeda hadn’t been able to judge them, what with her own history. All she could do was hold tight to baby Teddy as her daughter, son-in-law, and husband all sped off to save the world. Andy wanted to be there, protecting those she loved— she’d always been a fierce duelist. But there was Teddy to think of.

Narcissa was in hell. She’d never admitted it out loud, but she’d been palpably relieved when the Dark Lord fell the first time. When he’d returned, inhuman, in Little Hangleton that night, Lucius had of course needed to return to his side. The only other option was death. So Narcissa had watched, horrified, for three years now, as Lucius tried and failed to keep in their Lord’s good graces, and Draco had been pulled into the whole sordid business. She had watched, horrified, only a month or so ago, as the cackling shell that was all that remained of Bellatrix tortured the Granger girl on the floor of Lucius’s ancestral home. So when Harry Potter, against all odds, continued to draw breath after receiving his second killing curse from the Dark Lord, and whispered that Draco was also still alive, Narcissa stood up straight and lied directly to the darkest wizard of all time: _He is dead!_

Bellatrix was in her element. She lived for the chase, the chaos, the kill. She’d had her revenge on Andy, finally, striking down that half-blood brat of hers on the killing fields. The girl’s father and mongrel husband had been killed, too, though not by Bellatrix’s hand. Andy would _know_ , now, would feel everything that Bellatrix had felt all those years ago. Andy deserved it. Bellatrix trained her wand on Molly Weasley’s youngest and let out a laugh. She died, under Molly’s wand, still laughing.

IX. Andy, Bella, Cissa

No one wins a war, really. No matter who prevails, there is only loss: a life, a family, a hope. A sister.

Andromeda and Narcissa each have a single grandson: Teddy and Scorpius, who will never have sisters.

Of Bellatrix, not even ash remains.


End file.
